Page 70 of Shaped to Be Yours

“It was you,” I said aloud, still shifted and in mangled clothing. I couldn’t say if it was subconscious or not, but my form slowly shifted to being only the werewolf version that I’d first become when I thought a werewolf bit me.

“Jason…” Ricky grabbed my arm.

“It’s okay. He chased those people off, I bet, but I think he’s more afraid of me than I ever had reason to be afraid of him. You don’t know what I am either, do you?” I bent down, crouching, and he rolled upright from showing his belly and came forward to lick my face. Classic submission to an alpha.

He looked at Ricky but didn’t even dare to growl at him. He knew Ricky was mine.

“Your mate’s about to burst with more puppies, huh? It’s the right season. So, she probably had her first litter last summer, and they were only a few months old when you found me lurking around your territory.”

“That’s why I couldn’t sense what you did,” Ricky said. “It was never a monster. A normal wolf bit you.”

“And I changed, just like when Mickey bit me, and the snake.”

“What does that mean?”

I stood. The mate and what I assumed were the females from the previous year’s litter were clearly wary of us, staying behind their alpha, who’d so easily bowed to me as his. “I don’t know. Maybe the monster that took Dad still did something to me when I was a kid, but it didn’t trigger until I got bit, and the rain that day was just a coincidence. Hey.” I made sure the alpha looked at me, even though his instincts told him to avoid eye contact. “I don’t know if you can understand me, like, through some animal kinship or something, but you need to lie low with your pack. No one in the woods is after you, okay? They are aftersomething else. So stay hidden. Do not attack anyone. If they don’t know you’re here, they won’t come for you. Okay?”

It wasn’t as if I heard a voice in my head, but I had this eerie sense that the wolf did understand me. He bowed his head in further submission, and then ushered his family back into the trees. This time, as the branches parted, I saw why so few people had encountered them before. Those trees were hiding a hill. And in the side of that hill, covered in vines, was the mouth of a cave.

I really hoped no one else found them.

More noise erupted from the other direction. Not screams, but a whole lot of shouting.

“I think that’s back by the portal this time,” Ricky said.

“Let’s go.”

I shook off my wolf aspects as we ran the other way. My clothes hadn’t been destroyed enough to be indecent. Plus, I figured a werewolf appearing would only draw negative attention.

The portal wasn’t far, and once we reached it, what came as no surprise was that half a dozen people were already surrounding it, surrounding the guards, and wielding various clubbing weapons. At least no one had a gun, but among those advancing on the ogre guard, who I’d met before, and a human one, who looked like he’d already been on the receiving end of one of those clubs, were asshole father and son Jensen who’d catfished Kai.

“They let you out on bail?” My pronouncement distracted the group enough that they all turned at our arrival, giving the guards the chance to move away. They must have been overwhelmed, because I didn’t see either of their tasers on them. The portal wasn’t visible yet, but I thought I saw a few sparks forming. “Good luck managing it again after this, asshole. Now stand down.”

“Tell us what they’re doing out here!” Jensen Senior demanded of us.

“We’re studying a natural phenomenon that could be dangerous,” Ricky gambled on the truth, “especially during storms, so we need you to—”

“More lies,” he snarled, and tried to take a swing at Ricky with his bat.

I caught it mid-swing, which surprised the others enough that they stumbled back.

Thunder rolled overhead, followed by the emergency storm warning siren, and I could tell from Ricky’s expression that we were out of that buffer time we’d had before.

“Weren’t you supposed to have backup?” I called to the ogre, while thrusting Jensen away from me but keeping his bat, which I chucked into the woods behind me.

“They moved to the perimeter to help there,” she answered. She rested the woozy looking human guard against the side of the porta potty, which wasn’t ideal but better than the interior workstation, which was closer to the growing collection of sparks. “Along with Agent Whitmore, the scientist team, and their children.”

At least Kai wasn’t here to see his attackers again.

A flash of lightning above preceded an almost immediate growth in the sparks, as another roll of thunder sounded, louder and closer than before. A second later, the people with clubs couldn’t ignore the tear in reality as the portal opened.

“See! You’re doing something!” Jensen Senior hollered. “Tell us!”

His son Colt looked wary, but the others took this as a sign that none of this was worth the repercussions and took off running in various directions.

“No!” Jensen Senior called after them. “Cowards! We can finally find out what they’re doing!”

“I told you—” Ricky tried, but more lightning and thunder began, in rapid succession, as it finally started to rain outside thecanopy covering the site. The portal was growing, and I could feel that awful pull I remembered from when I was a kid.

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